Jean-Baptiste du Plessis d'Argentré

Jean-Baptiste du Plessis d'Argentré (born November 1, 1720 in Argentré-du-Plessis , Département Ille-et-Vilaine , † February 24, 1805 in Münster ) was a French bishop .

Life

Jean-Baptiste du Plessis (or Duplessis) was born in 1720 at the Castle du Plessis in the parish of Argentré. His father Pierre († 1772) was formerly Page Ludigs XIV , his mother was Marie-Louise Hindret de Ravenne. He studied at Saint-Sulpice and the Sorbonne in Paris and became vicar general of the Bishop of Limoges , Jean-Gilles du Coëtlosquet , a relative. 1759 transferred King Louis XV. him and his younger brother Louis-Charles , Bishop of Limoges since 1758, the education of the royal princes. In 1771 he succeeded Bishop Coëtlosquets first almsman of the Count of Provence, who later became King Louis XVIII. who also entrusted him with the administration of his benefit.

Ordained Bishop of Thagaste in partibus ( titular bishop ) on March 20, 1774 in the palace chapel of Versailles , Du Plessis took over the episcopal see of Sées the following year , but spent most of his time at the royal court in Versailles or Paris. The city and the diocese of Sées owe the bishop's palace (Palais d'Argentré), one of the most important neoclassical buildings in Normandy, to his enthusiasm for building and his great fortune . He also had the foundation stone laid for the great seminary; the completion of the hunting lodge in Fleuré prevented the revolution.

At the beginning of the revolution , elected the first mayor of the city of Sées , the required oath of the clergy on the civil constitution of the clergy , which he did not want to take , forced the bishop into exile in 1791/1792 - first to England, then to his brother in Munster in Westphalia. After the death of Cardinal Rochefoucauld, who also fled there, he took over jurisdiction over the Archdiocese of Rouen in 1800 and was one of the bishops who refused to resign Pope Pius VII in 1801/03 . He died in Münster in 1805 at the age of 85 and was buried there. His successor, Bishop Charles-Frédéric Rousselet , had the remains brought to Sées in 1875 and buried in the bishop's crypt.

literature

• Prosper Jean Levot: biography bretonne. Cauderan [et al.], Vannes [et al.] 1852–1857.
• Honoré Fisquet : La France pontificale (" Gallia Christiana "). Repos, Paris 1864–1871.
• Armand Jean: Les Évêques et les archevêques de France depuis 1682 jusqu'à 1801. Picard [ao], Paris [ao] 1891.
• Alphonse Angot: Dictionnaire historique, topographique et biographique de la Mayenne. Laval 1900-1903.
• Jean François Eugène Robinet, Adolphe Robert, Julien Le Chaplain: Dictionnaire historique et biographique de la révolution et de l'empire: 1789–1815. Libr. Historique de la révolution et de l'empire, Paris [1898].